The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1887-07-01


fundamentally wrong in our way of dealing
with our aboriginal population is admitted
by all, and many ways have been derived
and much labor spent by philantrophists
In lettering their condition with very small
practical results. Capt. Pratt, in his brief
address, went over some of the causes of
this failure to produce results commensur-
ate with our hopes by past methods and
showed the absolute necessity Of an entire
change of method if we would do our chris
tian duty to those who have double claims
upon us now as wards of the nation"
We have been welcoming to our land
strangers of every tongue and nation, $780,
600 of them in one year, many of whom
are much lower in the scale than our ma
tive population ever were, and they are at
once absorbed and become part of us,
while the Indian is debarred of every priv
ilege and spurned. from us as if he were a
brute, so that they are now little better
than when the white man first came to this
country,
Our last method has been to pen them up
on reservations and send soldiers to keep
them there, with one agent, one teacher,
one doctor and so on, TO each tribe to in
struct them in the way they should go and
make them fit for citizenship. All we are
doing does not amount 10 giving them
one teacher to 200 population, and these
often widely scattered. One teacher or
doctor to attend to patients on 400 square
miles? But reverse this homeopathic treat
ment. bring these children out where they
will each have the benefit and example of
200 christian teachers and we will soon
have different results
The whole Indian race in the United
States does not exceed the population of
Baltimore or Cincinnati and by the last
statistics we have there are about as many
now as when VIM. Penn came to Pennsyl-
vania, yet they, while Lying among us, are
not of US but continue to keep up their tri-
bal relations and speak about forty different
languages in sixty distinct natlonalities.
Our colored population were of as many
clans, but all have been educated by con-
tact with us into speaking one tongue and
have become useful citizens.
An experience of twenty years has en-
abled Capt. Pratt to demonstrate by practi-
cal results that the Indian is as capable of
receiving training an d taking his part in
the race of life as many of the foreigners
that crowd to our shores. But to do this
they must be treated as individuals and not
as tribes. These tribal distinctions are and
must be barrier to all progress looking to
ultimate citizenship.
Tribal annimosities, hatreds and Jealous
les must be forgotten and the English be-
come the one language of Amer lea. They
have at Carlisle young men from tribes
that have been mortal enemies for gener-
atoms, yet here they sit at the same table,
study at the same desks, work and sleep in
rooms together, without bloodshed or even
quarrels more than white children under
like circumstances.
They are now restricted to FIVE years
course Of training here at the east, the pop
ular idea being that these children after
this length of time spent in learning Eng
lish and the ways of civilization, will go
back to their western homes as missionar-
les and teachers to their people. Here is
where we are so short sighted as to expect
these children that haye had but a taste of
tribes. When the Lord would make
Moses he gave him forty years training
in the court of Pharaoh and then fourty
years drill in the dessert, and we must not
be surprised if some Carlisle pupils do go
back to the ways of their tribes when sent
back to be under such influences. To stand
alone as marks of ridicule among their
tribes requires moral heroism few white
men possess. There is no incentive to any
improvement when they are fed and cloth.
ed without effort. The Osages numbered
$500 few years ago and are one of the
most wealthy tribes. Their annuity will
supply every want and give them plenty
of cash to buy whiskey with. They now
number 1900 and under present treatment
they will soon rot out.
Land can never be of any use to any one
who has not the energy to earn it, nor will
he keep it if given to him. Riches are oft.
en- curse to their possessor and we owe our
best men very frequently to poverty. 1t is
the Indian we want not his land.
After some Rotations, defamation and
singing by the Indians present, to the de-
light of the audience, Lloyd Balderston of
Colora was introduced and in few words
gave his approval OF the works being done
at Carlisle and endorsed the policy of Capt.
Pratt to give the children of the Indians an
industrial education and an opportunity to
learn our ways by commingling with US in